Is It Truly Possible to live Cruelty-Free?!
Is It Truly Possible to live Cruelty-Free?
Let's face it, there is a lot of hypocrisy among people who like to preach their message against animal cruelty. I mean we all contribute to the culture of animal exploitation in one way or another, whether we mean to or not.
Even the most extreme vegans I know are still contributing to the suffering of animals by driving cars, using paper with dioxins that pollute the water... living in homes made of wood that probably once housed tiny animals...
Is anyone really capable of living a completely vegan life? Can you do this on a shoe-string budget? Why does shopping cruelty-free have to be so darn expensive, too?
Answers: I think it is true that one can live cruelty-free as possible.
And YES, one can live a completely vegan life. I've met them---but not in this culture. No,it isn,t possible.Even non animal clothing,furniture,and the shoes we wear ect. cause pollution into the atmosphere. It is not possible. Even for the most pious, there is a point where they just ignore the reality of what they are doing. They pretend that it's ok.
Commercial produce, many parts of vehicles and even the roads themselves are products of rendered animal parts. But they'll ignore that and still call themselves vegan, which obviously they are not.
Any one that you meet here in V & V is a vegetarian of various levels. There are no vegans here and the ones that still claim to be vegans are simply ignoring the examples I've given. I suppose that it depends on definitions. When does idealism run afoul of common sense? When does attempting to live as gently as it's rumored people like Confucius and the saints did, who wouldn't step on an ant if they could help it, run afoul of sheer necessity? What happens in your mind when you realize, at long last, that for you to live at all, some creatures must unavoidably perish?
So what is cruelty? I offer that it is the gratuitous, unnecessary harm done other living creatures, whether for fun or just because we can and nothing and nobody is going to retaliate. I must slaughter a chicken that my children may eat. If I slaughter more than is necessary, I am cruel. I must kill rats and mice that enter my food stores or my house so that they do not impart disease to my children through their urine and feces and by spreading disease-bearing fleas. If I go out and locate their burrows and kill them for entertainment or out of sheer boredom, I'm being cruel. If I clean frogs and toads out of my cows' pond, I'm making it healthier for the cows and for those who depend on the cows for meat and milk. If, however, I do like President George Bush admits doing as a child and I shove firecrackers down the frogs' and toads' throats and blow them apart, I'm being unspeakably cruel.
So again - it depends on your definition of cruelty. If you think it cruel to take the life of any creature, I think you're being a simpleton because it's impossible to live that way. If you behave like President Bush, you're a despicable beast that deserves nothing but the disgust and loathing of all decent human beings. If you recognize that you take another creature's life only to preserve your own and those for whom you are responsible, then you are living a righteous life.
Given the above, what sort of life would you say you are living? You do not know what "vegan" means'
Veganism is not about being 100% animal free or being perfect.
It means that you do everything that is within your power to not contribute to the suffering of animals without going as far as cutting yourself off from the general community.
If you are vegan, it is part of your duty to live among
non-vegans and show them that you are a normal person and have no one suspect that you are vegan unless they get to know you and there is a good reason to tell them, which does NOT include trying to "convert" or "recruit" them. It shouldn't even be displayed as any kind of significant revelation and no more information about it should be discussed unless the person leads you in that direction.
There is no such thing as "completely vegan". There are people that are vegan at heart and actually do everything they can about it and then there are people that do nothing and complain that others don't do enough.
A person is either vegan or not, that's it. No one can cure all of our societal and environmental ills. Vegan is about doing what you can. I mean, not eating as many animals as you can or using their products is doing your part as you can do it. Using paper, living in houses, and other things that you list are things that we are born in to. Some may go live out in the wilderness, cultivating the land in bio-friendly ways and living off what they can do, but most of us can't.
And vegan does not have to be expensive, it depends on what you are buying. If you are shopping solely at Whole Foods or buying a lot of expensive soy/vegan alternative products, that can get costly. A basic diet of fruits, veggies, beans and grains thought is not very expensive at all.